Chapter 2 Flashcards
The ideas that young Descartes had at Ulm, which transformed his life and really started him on his vocation as a philosopher and scientist, were primarily about
a method for obtaining knowledge
The hydraulically operated mechanical statues at St. Germain were important to Descartes because
they suggested the idea that animal bodies could be understood mechanistically as automata.
Descartes’s mathematical invention, which integrated algebra and geometry, is called
analytic geometry.
The first rule of Descartes’s method, providing the equivalent of the geometric axioms, was to
doubt everything.
The only “simple natures” Descartes discerned when he applied his method to the analysis of the physical world were the concepts of
extension and motion.
According to Descartes’s physics, the entire physical universe is made up of
invisible particles of “fire,” invisible particles of “air,” and visible particles of material “earth.”
In the Treatise of Man, Descartes provided mechanistic explanations for all the following functions EXCEPT
reason
In Descartes’s theory of the reflex mechanism, stimuli are transmitted to the brain by means of __________, and responses are initiated by __________.
tugs and pulls on filaments through nerves; the flow of animal spirits through the nerves and into the muscles
Descartes accounted mechanistically for emotional influences on behavior by postulating
currents and “commotions” in the reservoir of animal spirits.
Descartes hypothesized that the state of __________ occurs when the brain is relatively emptied of animal spirits, so that its nerve fibers are slack and only infrequently capable of transmitting stimulation.
sleep and dreaming
When Descartes found he could doubt everything except the reality of his doubting itself, he gained immediate reassurance of the
reality of his rational mind.
Descartes believed that concepts such as “unity,” “infinity,” or “perfection,” which cannot be represented by single sensory impressions, were which of the following?
innate ideas of the rational soul
Descartes believed that the
body and mind interact and mutually influence each other, with neither always dominating.
Descartes believed that animals were
mechanical automata, lacking consciousness.
Where did Descartes localize the most important interactions between the body and the soul?
in the pineal gland
According to Descartes’s theory of visual perception, the
mind’s conscious perception is a nearly perfect replica of the real observed object.
Descartes hypothesized that when the pineal gland is moved by eddies and currents in the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds it,
the soul becomes conscious of a passion.
Since Descartes’s time, research has shown that
his theory of bodily mechanism was wrong in details but highly productive in its general implications.
According to Galileo, the characteristics of material particles—shape, quantity, and motion—were called
primary qualities.
Galileo defined secondary qualities as
qualities that do not reside inherently in matter but arise only after the primary qualities impinge on the human senses.
Legend has it that Descartes did much of his best thinking
in bed
Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia had an important intellectual friendship with Descartes and, while she was highly impressed by Descartes’s writings, she disagreed with him on
how the immaterial mind and the material body interacted.
Descartes’s Treatise on the Passions of the Soul (1649) was highly influenced by his correspondence with
Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.
Descartes believed that the passions were the
conscious experiences of the body’s emotions.
